Language Alert
With the approval of publisher Chris Anderson, Oregonian Editor, Peter Bhatia, has obviously chosen "affordable" housing to mean "PUBLIC" housing. (The Metro regional government uses the euphuism "regulated affordable housing" to mean "PUBLIC" housing.) This unfortunate management misjudgment will mislead, misinform and misdirect Oregonian readers. The purposeful and deliberate misuse of "affordable" instead of "public" housing will certainly lead to confusion in the marketplace of ideas and difficulty in public discussion and debate regarding Public, Regulated Affordable, Affordable, Workforce and Marketplace housing which should be the result of Brad Schmidt's excellent four part story referenced below.

Affordable Housing can be described as either of the following:
1. Mortgage/Rent + Taxes + Insurance + Utilities is less than or equal to 30% of local median household income.
2. Mortgage/Rent + Taxes + Insurance + Utilities is less than or equal to 30% of household income.

PUBLIC Housing = Means Test + Government Subsidy + Rental Agreement

Public Housing may or may NOT meet the definition of Affordable Housing.

Public Housing may or may NOT meet the definition of Workforce Housing.

Affordable Housing is a subset of Market Rate Housing, Public Housing is NOT.

Workforce Housing is a subset of Affordable Housing built near a client's workplace.

ALL PUBLIC HOUSING involves Government Subsidy and a Means Test and a Rental Agreement which are ALL AND ALWAYS CONTROLLED BY GOVERNMENT. This means that the government can be held accountable to taxpayers and voters for Public Housing policy and the courts can enforce Public Housing legal agreements. No such political and legal accountability attaches itself to Affordable and Workforce housing.

All four of the following articles refer exclusively to PUBLIC HOUSING policy and spending controlled by governments.

Many of my readers who have been following the hundreds of stories I have written on this subject over the last twelve years will find very little that is new in Brad Schmidt's four part series cited below. Schmidt's and the Oregonian's confirmation of my work is gratifying despite the fact that I am not mentioned nor was I consulted.

Nevertheless, to his and the Oregonian's great credit, Brad Schmidt has broken the taboo and has provided Oregonian newspaper readers, for the first time, an impressive, comprehensive and enlightening look at the dark side of Public Housing people, practices and policies. Schmidt's light now shines alongside mine in an effort to bring accountability and change to public institutions that have lost their way and do too much of their work in the dark.

Welcome Brad Schmidt and the Oregonian to my world. Readers please enjoy, learn and act upon his work.

The Oregonian has found that leaders across the metro area and beyond are failing to fulfill a fundamental goal of the nation's 44-year-old Fair Housing Act: to give everyone, regardless of color, a fair shot at living in a decent neighborhood.

Taxpayer money meant to help break down segregation and poverty is instead reinforcing it. Agencies and governments are subsidizing housing in the poorest neighborhoods and commonly in areas with above-average minority concentrations.

The Oregonian's analysis shows the city and its suburbs are harboring a form of institutionalized racial inequity.

Agencies and governments serving Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties accept about $170 million a year in federal money. Under the Fair Housing Act, they are expected to try to spread affordable housing across neighborhoods. They are expected to avoid concentrating poverty or people of color. In taking the money, they explicitly promise to identify and dismantle barriers to those efforts.

That's NOT happening.

In 1993, the Portland City Council approved a "location policy" that prohibited placing affordable housing in the poorest parts of town unless leaders granted an exception. But city documents obtained by The Oregonian show that in 2003, city leaders realized the exception had "swallowed the rule." Every developer who sought leeway got it. City housing officials dropped the policy last year.

An investigation by The Oregonian has found that Home Forward, the housing authority that serves Multnomah County, has failed over the past decade to equitably distribute units throughout the county in its Section 8 program and the rentals it directly controls.

The agency repeatedly violated its own policy on not placing Section 8 units it directly controls in neighborhoods where 20 percent or more of the population lives below the federal poverty line.

Under the nation's Fair Housing Act, communities that accept federal housing money -- Clackamas County and the county housing authority receive about $18 million a year -- must provide equal housing opportunities and root out decades-old patterns of racial segregation. People of color, in particular, stand to benefit when low-cost housing is spread across neighborhoods, federal officials note in a fair-housing guide for state and local governments.

More than a decade ago, the Metro Council set five-year goals for 24 cities and Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.

But problems developed early. At the end of 2004, Metro officials evaluated the 27 governments, tracking whether each adopted housing targets or submitted annual reports. Metro also found that nearly 40 percent of annual progress reports had never been turned in and that many of the rest didn't say how many units had been developed.

Most of the local governments failed to comply. Metro responded by "temporarily" suspending the reporting requirements. Five years later, the affordable-housing policy remains the only one of the agency's governing rules on hold.

Metro did create a first-of-its-kind inventory in 2007 and delivered a second one this past March -- three years later than it promised. The report, though valuable in tracking the number and location of units, is of little use in gauging the success of the 2001 goals.

Two Oregon laws -- one allows rejection of Section 8 vouchers, and one bans zoning to encourage affordable housing [mandatory inclusionary zoning]-- work against poor families.

These four articles are a flaming indictment of failure and wrongdoing of the regional Public Housing players and practices of major proportions and import. It is the same story I have been telling for the last TWELVE YEARS.

Who Is Mostly Responsible For This? The Mayor Of Portland.

The mayor of Portland is by far the most powerful regional player in the Public Housing game in both statutory authority and influence. He controls who will be in charge of the Portland Housing Bureau, who will be nominated for a board position on the Public Housing Authority of Multnomah County and, most importantly, can dismiss the Housing Bureau commissioner and all the PHAMC board at his will. This makes him the undisputed boss. This means that no Public Housing policy or program in Multnomah country can be executed that the mayor of Portland does not approve.

Mayors Vera Katz, Tom Potter and Sam Adams all approved of a public policy of Targeted, UNLIMITED Neighborhood Concentration of Public Housing.

Mayors Vera Katz, Tom Potter and Sam Adams all denied access to accurate, complete and timely Public Housing Statistical Data from the Housing Bureau and the Public Housing Authority of Multnomah County.

Mayors Vera Katz, Tom Potter and Sam Adams have refused to vet nominees for the PHAMC board by questioning their views on the polar opposite and competing Public Housing policy positions of Equitable Distribution of Public Housing versus Targeted, UNLIMITED Neighborhood Concentration of Public Housing.

Mayor Sam Adams denies the very existence of Public Housing and prevented the subject from being discussed or included in the so-called comprehensive Portland Plan.

Portland mayoral candidates Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith as well as council candidates Amanda Fritz and Mary Nolanall support the status quo. Shameful and disturbing.

Public Housing is a regional issue. Metro needs to take command of this issue through legislation that will require it to follow HUD Fair Housing guidelines and practice a policy of Equitable Distribution of Public Housing both among and within Washington, Clackamas and Multnomah counties.

Now that the news side of the Oregonian has broken the taboo against reporting on Public Housing policy, practices and people it remains to be seen how the corporate voice of the Oregonian will speak through its editorial board, which has never in its history addressed this subject.

Richard Ellmyer
Certified Oregon Change Agent by governor John Kitzhaber
My articles on this issue spanning the last twelve years can be found here:
http://goodgrowthnw.org/housing.html
and here:
http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/Richard%2520Ellmyer/index.html%5D